Will the myriads of social media applications serve to remove degrees of separation or will they make any difference at all?
In my previous post, I reviewed the six degrees of separation phenomenon and began speculating how our new era of hyperconnectivity might serve to remove degrees of separation between people.
Here’s a quick look at a definition of hyperconnectivity:
[Hyperconnectivity] refers to the use of multiple means of communication, such as email, instant messaging, telephone, face-to-face contact and Web 2.0 information services.
It has become more common for people to use multiple communication methods to stay in touch, with a growing adoption of Internet and Web based methods. New applications seems to appear regularly.
Let’s look at how communication methods have evolved.
Type 0 (pre-Web and pre-ubiquitous Internet access)
Examples of Type 0 communication methods:
- Postal mail and courier (letters and documents)
- Faxes
- Telephone calls (person to person or conference)
- Telegrams
- Internal network E-Mails
- Physical meetings
- Mass media
Many of us, and the generations before us, grew up in a world limited by type 0 communication methods. Or at least we did for part of our lives.
Type 1 (ubiquitous Internet access, Web 1.0 era)
Type 0 plus:
- Internet E-Mail
- Video conferencing
- E-Mail lists
- Usenet
- Private forums
- Static websites and the original weblogs
Those of us who belong to Generation X were the first generation to experience the onset of Type 1 communication methods as we went on to post-secondary education and then joined the workforce. In my case, I remember how company-wide E-Mail was first introduced into my company about 13 years ago. Generation Y would have seen these developments as they entered primary school.
Type 2 (ubiquitous high speed Internet access, Web 2.0)
Type 0 and 1 plus:
- Social media and Web 2.0 (social news, social bookmarking, and social networking)
- Microblogging, aggregators, lifestreaming, blog commenting
- Audio and video blogging
- Open IM clients (e.g. GTalk)
- Wireless connectivity
Communication advances have generally created faster and easier to use methods. In the pre-Internet era, nothing was faster than a phone call except for a face-to-face meeting (although travel time to arrange a face-to-face meeting was often prohibitive). Today we have a number of methods that allow virtually real-time interaction and more variations on them seem to appear on a regular basis.
A real-life example
Some people choose to embrace new forms of communication as they become available.
Fast Company.tv managing director Robert Scoble is a well-known (in technology and social media circles) example of a hyperconnected person. He is well-known for publishing his cell phone number on his blog and was one of the first prominent bloggers to do so, inspiring other bloggers to do the same. He also gained attention for autofollowing every Twitter user who followed him (although he later abandoned that practice after gaining over 20,000 followers). He uses other services and gains large numbers of followers on those services.
Robert Scoble is clearly a hyperconnected individual and has met a wide variety of people through his work and social activities. Not only does he use multiple methods of communication (from Types 0, 1, and 2), but he uses them to connect with large numbers of people. If you can connect to someone like Robert Scoble (or Leo Laporte, Kevin Rose, Jason Calacanis, Laura Fitton, Chris Brogan, or a number of other highly connected social media users), the combination of technology and social connectedness might allow you to skip degrees of separation and shorten the average path length between individuals.
Or so you would think.
In my next post, I’ll talk about some of the reasons why improved technology isn’t much help in removing those pesky degrees of separation.
Table of contents for six degrees
- How hyperconnectivity really could eliminate degrees of separation
- The challenges of connecting with hyperconnectivity
- Hyperconnectivity shakes up six degrees of separation
- Reducing the six degrees of separation
I'll be interested to see where this goes, Mark. It's interesting that as we become more connected we hook up with the same people across different networks, although I would have thought that this reinforces the six degrees of separation.
Sharon, on the surface you would think that more interconnections might reduce the six degrees of separation, but we'll see.
I don't think any particular communication method alters the 6 degrees phenomenon, but I enjoyed the different types.
Social media has definitely connected me to people with whom I'd have had to jump many other stones to even get a chance to meet. Oh yeah.
I know that unlike the phone and mail and other type 0 methods, the use of Twitter and FriendFeed and blogging accelerates the rate of connections made. In the past month or so I have connected with more people than I did all last year via these methods. It is easier to get into the 'groups' of users since you can all speak to each other.
I don't disagree with the overall concept. I think the graphics confuse me a bit. When I think of hyperconnected, I think of hyperconnectivity as a skillset/practice more than a state of being. I opt to be this connected. My mindset is that I've set up listening posts, an ability to respond rapidly (or as close as I can), and an interest in performing those functions.
I think there are shades of hyperconnectivity: Scoble is a great communicator on Friendfeed, but he's ALSO a super great information absorber/parser. I parse information, but only pass through a small set. Robert passes through volumes.
There's something here, but it merits more conversations and more shades of understanding. Thanks for starting the process.
Bingo. I think that's the essence of what I'm trying to get at and which I need to elaborate on some more.
Social media services can both accelerate the rate of connections as well as the total number of connections compared to older methods. Groups of users is an excellent point. However, there's still a quality and true connectedness experience that needs to be factored in.
I hope to elaborate on all of this in the next post. I should have put more description behind the graphics, but hopefully I can bring that around next post.
Fair point: the term “hyperconnected” can have some nuances to it.
I'll try to address your point in the next post, Michael.
I agree completely that calling someone on the phone implies a higher level of connectedness (hopefully), but being able to engage in conversations that require less social capital, such as a quick DM question on Twitter help to build stronger relationships.
We should never overlook the importance of helping other people.
[...] When last we spoke, we looked at how people are gaining access to multiple communication methods that provide additional contact points. Many of you who read this blog have experienced this growth in websites, applications, and services that are Web variations on a personal conversation or telephone call. But does it really make it any easier to connect with people that you don’t know? [...]
[...] Hyperconnectivity shakes up six degrees of separation [...]
[...] how Web 2.0 technologies could help us remove degrees of separation between people. In particular, social networking allows individuals to make some form of connection with each other without meeting…. However, there are some realistic limits on how readily or deeply individuals will widen their [...]
I am not afan of any of the new forms of communication techniques, i am getting on a bit and have struggled to come to terms with the internet nevermind Facebook n Twitter!!
Jean Bree´s last blog ..Game of Bingo